CYCLING; Armstrong Will Retire; Hamilton Is Suspended

By JULIET MACUR; Patrick McGeehan contributed reporting from Augusta, Ga., for this article.

Published: April 19, 2005

Lance Armstrong, the strong-willed Texas cyclist even cancer could not stop, announced yesterday that he would retire after this summer's Tour de France, an event he has won a record six straight times.

Armstrong, 33, said he struggled with the decision but, in the end, wanted more time with his three young children.

''My children are my biggest supporters, but at the same time, they are the ones who told me it's time to come home,'' Armstrong said at a news conference in Augusta, Ga., where he will begin his defense of his Tour de Georgia championship today.

Armstrong revealed his retirement plans less than two hours before the Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton, once teammates with Armstrong on the United States Postal Service team, received a two-year suspension for illegally transfusing someone else's blood before the Vuelta a Espa?n September. A blood transfusion increases an athlete's red blood cells, which boost aerobic capacity and endurance.

Though Hamilton can appeal the decision to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport, as of now he forfeits all of his competition results from Sept. 11, 2004, onward.

Bobby Julich, who was preparing to race in the Tour de Georgia, said he was ''literally shocked'' when he heard of Hamilton's suspension. Hamilton won Olympic gold at Athens in August in the time trial, and Julich, also an American, won the bronze.

''It's going to be hard for him and for USA Cycling to rebound from this,'' Julich said. ''Lance and Tyler. That's two huge pieces of the puzzle of the last six, seven, eight years. We have two very, very big shoes to fill.''

Hamilton, 34, who rode nearly the entire 2003 Tour de France with a broken collarbone, did not return phone calls seeking comment yesterday after an arbitration panel made its decision, which was announced by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

In a 2,205-word entry on his personal Web site discussing the case, Hamilton wrote, ''I would never risk my health or my wife's health for the sake of racing.''

For years, Armstrong has also professed his innocence in the face of doping allegations. Now he is focused solely on winning his seventh straight Tour de France. The victory would give him two more victories than some of the best cyclists in history. The five-time champions are Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain.

Nothing would be better, Armstrong said, than to win his final race and to ''go out on top.''

Armstrong, who grew up in Plano, Tex., won his first triathlon when he was 13, and he has been cycling professionally since he was 16.

His career was on an upswing when he was found to have testicular cancer in 1996. Though given a slim chance to survive, he beat the cancer, then started the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which provides support for and information to cancer patients and their families. His foundation has sold more than 40 million rubber yellow LiveStrong bracelets to increase cancer awareness and raise funds.

Armstrong returned to racing in 1999 and quickly became an inspiration to cancer patients and survivors, winning his first Tour de France. His coach, Chris Carmichael, said that Armstrong's life had changed so much since then.

''Back then, it was so easy for his whole life to revolve around training for the Tour,'' Carmichael said. ''Now he realizes that he has to shift some energy to other aspects of his life, like his kids, his relationships, his foundation. He knows that he can't keep up with this year-round training anymore.''

He added: ''I've yet to see any changes in him physically. But he knows that a decrease in performance happens mentally, first. Then it's kind of like your legs follow your head.''

Armstrong usually begins training for the season in October, but, Carmichael said, he began training this season in January, a little less sharp than usual. He spent his off-season splitting time between Austin, Tex., where his children live, and Southern California, where his girlfriend, the singer Sheryl Crow, lives.

Hamilton, who is at the tail end of his career, spent his off-season in Boulder, Colo., training there after his Swiss-based team Phonak fired him in November.

According to a statement by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Hamilton's troubles began last spring, when the International Cycling Union, or U.C.I., warned him and his team that he was suspected of blood doping. Afterward, U.C.I. singled out Hamilton and tested him at the Vuelta a Espa?where his blood samples came back positive for blood doping.

Hamilton also tested positive at the Olympics, but anti-doping officials there mishandled his blood samples, so Hamilton kept his medal.

But Dick Pound, the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said yesterday that the International Olympic Committee ''might be very well prepared'' to open an investigation of Hamilton, in order to strip him of it.

''There was no doubt in our mind that we shot ourselves in the foot at the Olympics,'' he said. ''That turned into a train wreck because we all know Hamilton got away with a gold medal.''

The case Hamilton and his lawyers presented to the arbitration panel last month centered on the possibility of Hamilton having a ''vanishing twin'' who shared the womb with Hamilton in the first trimester of pregnancy and exchanged blood stem cells with him before failing to develop further, explaining the presence of someone else's blood in Hamilton's blood sample.

Pound said, ''The methodology is one with which we're quite satisfied with, and clearly the arbitration panel is quite satisfied that the test is reliable.''

Hamilton's suspension will exclude him from racing professionally until April 17, 2007, which means that he will miss the Tour de France for the next two years. He has said that his ultimate goal is to return to racing to ''prove people wrong.''

After nearly 20 years as a pro athlete, Armstrong is quite sure he will not return to racing once the Tour de France concludes July 24. ''The body does not just keep going and going and going,'' he said.

Photos: After this year, Lance Armstrong won't be greeting fans in Paris at the end of the Tour de France, at least from a bike. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)(pg. D1); Tyler Hamilton, last week in Boulder, Colo., received a two-year suspension yesterday for a doping violation. (Photo by Jack Dempsey/Associated Press)(pg. D7)